The largest meeting point for former and current members of the Fellowship of Friends is the Greater Fellowship, you can sign up to the Greater Fellowship community and connect with former members of the Fellowship of Friends as well as some current members here.

To visit “Living Presence”, the newly created web site for recruiting new members to the Fellowship;

At the Moderator’s discretion, excessive abuse, personal attacks, taking up too much space, as well as deliberate attempts to unmask people taking part in the discussion will result in a warning followed by a ban or a leave of absence from the discussion.

Participants require 1 moderated comment before they can start communicating in real-time. (ie. if you are new to the discussion, your comment will appear about 1 day after it has been posted, any subsequent comments will appear instantaneously).

I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to
the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth.
I dream’d that was the new city of Friends.
Nothing was greater there than the quality
of robust love, it led the rest.
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men
of that city, and in all their looks and words.

It is such hypocrisy that Robert Burton posts this poem on the Living Presence website. Imagine, to say that…where men are sometimes separated from their wives, and parents compelled to leave their children, and physically attractive devoted male ‘students’ are slowly woven into a labyrinthian orgiastic web by the Fellowship of Friends spider-like predatory
‘Teacher,’ Robert Burdon. “Robust love”…ha! “It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, and in all their looks and words.” So untrue!

‘The reason the blog has the potential to be so effective is because it is a forum to question and in many cases expose the fraud and corruption that exists inside the Fellowship CULT. If you want to get a taste of the bullshit, read the letter from David Lubbers (springfield) to the fellowship board. You can google “David Springfield letter” and you might find it. The fellowship has gone through great lengths to get it removed from every possible outlet that might reproduce it.’

Wikileaks, the site that hosted the ‘Lawyer Letter,’ has reluctantly suspended all other operations except for fund raising to continue their work.

The david-springfield-letter-2009.doc is currently unavailable. Here is summary:

‘Censored Fellowship of Friends cult letter from former legal council David Springfield, 2009
From Wikileaks
Released June 12, 2009
Summary

The Fellowship of Friends is a “intellectual” fourth-way cult founded in the 1970s by its current leader Robert Earl Burton[1][2][3]. It claims chapters in many countries, including 10 chapters in the United States[4].

This file contains a copy of a letter sent to the members of the Board of Directors of the Fellowship of Friends apparently by their former legal counsel. The letter outlines many illegal activities of the Fellowship of Friends and omissions of oversight by said Board of Directors, and possible consequences if these matters come to the attention of the authorities.

The document was initially released on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, but was wholly censored by the publisher WordPress.com after it received a claim of copyright infringement under the US DMCA.

A version of it was then made available on the Internet Archive (archive.org), but it too has been removed.

The letter refers to fraud obtaining religious visas, fraudulent accounting, inurements to the chief minister (Robert Earl Burton), tax evasion, and so on. It may be of interest to agencies within the US government and the governments of other countries.

Because of the current issues with Wikileaks publications, mirror servers all over the internet have been proliferated to protect the released materials from being suppressed. Consequently, the material containing the ‘David Springfield letter’ to Fellowship of Friends Board of Directors (david-springfield-letter-2009.doc) has been proliferated, too.

Bad news may be that you have to download it with a huge amount of other material to the extent of 15176 MB (15.176 GB), if you have the hard drive space for it and the bandwidth, when the file is only 49 Kb. Also, no guarantee it is what you want as the download has not been tried and verified. If you try it, please report back here your results.

98/184. Xavier Stewart Dent – December 18, 2010:

A.P.,
Here is an excerpt…

“It is my feeling that what occurred over the last three weeks is a combination of crime, gross carelessness and ignorance of almost all Board members.

“In my opinion, serious crimes have likely been committed and are possibly continuing to be committed by current members on the Board. This should be addressed immediately. As I wrote about in my letter of November 6, 2007, the requirement of legal compliance and checks and balances within our organization needs urgent attention. The Board has been for some time but a passive “rubber-stamp” board without active or meaningful oversight. This almost complete inaction may create the impression of the [our beloved school] as a criminal organization….”

There is much more.

‘I am not sending this letter because I like writing of these matters or because I want to repeat what has already been stated repeatedly by both Abraham and me. This letter is written because of my professional obligations and my personal obligations to the School. . .

My professional responsibilities require me to send this letter to confirm again that I will provide no further legal services to the FoF, and have stopped working on all ongoing legal matters that I was involved with. This letter also advises you to immediately work with . . . legal counsel to handle the legal work I was involved in and to address other ongoing and/or upcoming legal matters that I will outline in this letter. . .

On November 18, 2007, I was voted off the Board of Directors. Now, no longer working as attorney, nor being able to act as a member of the Board, I will be unable to assist the Fellowship with any legal work or offer any oversight. . .

The failure by almost all of the Board members to even have the decency or honesty to acknowledge a secret Board meeting was held and a secret vote taken (to vote the lawyers off the Board), without any opportunity to address the issues by the persons involved is below the level of school work for any student, let alone a board member with responsibility for our church. . .

. . . may create the impression of the Fellowship as a criminal organization that is functioning as the later ego of Robert Burton, involved in a conspiracy to engage in financial, tax and immigration fraud, and perhaps other illegal activities and/or tortuous conduct.

The legal work I have been involved in covers the following areas:
1. Immigration . . . 2. Financial Compliance . . . The Fellowship’s financial activities, in my opinion, could be seen as criminal conspiracy to commit tax fraud and private inurement benefiting Robert and a number of other individuals (including possibly some Board members) and could be considered a fraud on the government. The status as a non profit corporation could well be in serious danger. . . 3. Investigation/Monitoring of Blog/GF/PR, etc. Several times this year I have written to Youtube or other websites to have offending material taken off line . . . I also have conducted an investigation into aspects of the Blog and some individuals with the aim to allow us to file suit for defamation and/or invasion of privacy if and when appropriate . . . 4. It was our diligent monitoring of the blog that put us on notice that A.B.’s arranged (by Fellowship officers and/or agents) fraudulent marriage to E.d.R. was being exposed to the world. . .I will no longer monitor the Blogs or any other sites, in any language, and will no longer assist with analysis and efforts to bring these matters into compliance. . . 5. Insurance. We were working on a review of all materials from the Internet and other sources that could constitute a claim (including foreign websites) . . . Insurance could possibly pay for some of the costs incurred, including legal costs. I will stop all my work on this claim process, including any work on the research into the bad faith claim aspect of the insurance which I wrote about before . . . 6. Other matters: There are outstanding million dollar judgments from the Ming litigation era . . . Given the success we have had collecting from various parties, I would consider this an important item to follow up on. I will no longer take any action in this area either.

In short, the overall picture is in my opinion that the Fellowship itself, Robert, and a number of our friends, including several board members and officers, continue to be in potential legal jeopardy and liability.

With the information, according to what I gathered from my investigation, shared by certain former members to various agencies, I cannot envision that there will not be an government investigation and/or lawsuit in the planning/preparation stages with possibly serious consequences for the Fellowship, the Board of Directors, Robert and possibly a number of individual students, including possibly individual Board members. . .

A fully professional and active compliance team to put matters straight must be created. This team would need to be working daily, hands on, with the supervision and input from professionals. The existing irregularities cannot be hidden from the people that need to help bring us into compliance.’

WASHINGTON HOUSE – In a historic vote for gay rights and bowing to mounting financial pressures, the Board of Directors of the Fellowship of Friends, Inc. AKA Living Presence, Pathway to Presence, and BeingPresent.org, agreed on Saturday that they need to do away with the cult’s 37-year ban on being open about straight members having gay sex with fondler and CEO Robert E. Burton, politely and sheepishly requesting that he overturn his Reagan-era policy known as “Don’t Say, Don’t Pay,” in which certain male members were relieved of having to make the mandatory membership donations like everyone else in exchange for being relieved of their semen by him.

Burton’s male consorts could be required to get day jobs, even if they have dick duty at night.

Repeal would also mean that, for the first time in the cult’s history, cult gays would be openly accepted by other followers and could acknowledge their sexual orientation along with their disgust of Burton’s sleazy, predatory sexual behavior without fear of being kicked out. More than 13,500 members have been dismissed under the old policy.

No longer will able gay men and women who want to serve Burton’s narcissism and sacrifice their lives, 401K’s, and unborn children to him have to sacrifice all their integrity to do so. If Burton agrees to the request, which is doubtful, they might get to keep some.

“It is time to close this chapter in our dark, closeted history,” a gay Fellowship Board Member was quoted as saying under the condition that his name not be published for fear of ex-communication, “It is time to recognize that Burton’s exploitation, greed, lust, and complete lack integrity are no more defined by his sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed. Not all gays are like him.”

How the cult will implement a change in policy, and how long that will take remains unclear. Senior Fellowship followers have said the new policy could be rolled out incrementally, so as not to overwhelm the concubines, many of whom have never worked a day in their lives and do not have full command of the English language.

“It will be tough on them,” one follower said, “but it’s time they pay their fair share. They are no more lucky or entitled than the rest of us. What they choose or have no choice to do in their personal spare time with Burton is fine; it’s time to set some boundaries about what it means to be a member. Everyone has to pay. That’s always been the rule.”

“No matter how I look at the issue,” said one ex-follower, “I cannot escape being deeply troubled by the fact that they have in place a policy which forces young men and women to fabricate lies about who they are and who they have to do in order to defend their cult and cult leader from any criticism.”

At least 25 countries allow gays to serve openly in cults and also in the armed forces, among them Britain, Canada and Israel, according to the Palm Center, a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Thanks for the extended version of the ‘David Springfield letter’, which I would suppose, many of us could not not ‘google’. I am certain it will have power in bringing to light the criminal element of the FOF…..Nigel

Senior Fellowship followers have said the new policy could be rolled out incrementally, so as not to overwhelm the concubines, many of whom have never worked a day in their lives and do not have full command of the English language.

“It will be tough on them,” one follower said, “but it’s time they pay their fair share. They are no more lucky or entitled than the rest of us. What they choose or have no choice to do in their personal spare time with Burton is fine; it’s time to set some boundaries about what it means to be a member. Everyone has to pay. That’s always been the rule.”

NOW as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Come they told me pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
A new-born king to see pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
Our finest gifts we bring pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
Rum-pum-pum-pum, rum-pum-pum-pum

Come they told me pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
A new-born king to see pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
Our finest gifts we bring pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
to lay before the king pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
Rum-pum-pum-pum, rum-pum-pum-pum
so to honour him pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
when we come

Little baby pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
I stood beside him there pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
I played my drum for him pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
I played my best for him pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
Rum-pum-pum-pum, rum-pum-pum-pum
And he smiled at me pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
me and my drum

Peace on Earth, can it be
Years from now, perhaps we’ll see
See the day of glory
See the day, when men of good will
Live in peace, live in peace again

Peace on Earth, can it be
Every child must be made aware
Every child must be made to care
Care enough for his fellow man
To give all the love that he can

I pray my wish will come true
For my child and your child too
He’ll see the day of glory
See the day when men of good will
Live in peace, live in peace again

How to describe a conscious teacher? His only true credentials are his own presence and his effect upon his students. He does what no one else will do or can do—teaching the most unpopular of all truths: that our illusory sense of “I” must die before presence can be born. He is the living reminder that it is possible to awaken, and that presence means humility, acceptance, and conscious love.

CRAZY HOUSE- Yesterday a man, identifying himself only as a “man number four” was stopped at the front gate of the international headquarters for the Fellowship of Friends, Inc. DBA Pathway to Presence, Living Presence, and BeingPresent.org, for alleging spreading too many unpopular truths about all the hidden mental, emotional, physical, sexual, and financial costs associated with long-term membership in the quasi-religious organization.

Not only was the unidentified man bearing these numerous unpopular truths refused entrance, his leaflets, signs, petition, and testimony were all confiscated and painted over; older group members then urged him to compromise his dignity and self-respect, along with his critical faculties, too, by systematically re-instilling what CEO and bleeder, Robert E. Burton, considers the single most popular unpopular Fellowship truth of all: that one should never trust oneself or place oneself above him, along with other less popular unpopular truths among the Fellowship members, such as “the world is going to end really soon, we own the patent on the present, teacher always knows best, we are better than anybody else, and 100 are not enough”.

After a brief detainment the unidentified man was later released from the group apparently unharmed, but with an audible ticking sound emanating from the back of his head.

Whilst in this Season of the Coming of Celestial Light into the World, it may be interesting to dwell on what is not of Celestial Light and the Fellowship of Friends belongs to that category. Whilst in it, I was aware that there were hardships to be borne, not the least of those being the financial payments (which skyrocketed when I reached California in 1982). Probably blinded by this type of difficulty, I firmly believed that most other students were dutifully ‘working on themselves’ and making ‘true connections’ with one another. Coming across this blogsite 18 years after leaving the cult, I am now convinced that there is a Very Dark Evil called the Fellowship of Friends, which has such an ALLURING FACADE. Allurement is something that true spiritual masters warn against. With what people here know of REB and his sexual antics, can anyone call him a true spiritual master?????.Nigel.

May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness, which is virtue
May all beings remain free from suffering and the causes of suffering, which are non virtue and delusion
May all beings remain un-separated from the sacred joy and happiness, that is, totally free from sorrow
May all beings come to rest in the boundless, all-inclusive equanimity, beyond attachment and aversion
May all beings be happy, content, and fulfilled
May all be peaceful, in harmony, and at ease
May all be protected from harm, fear, and danger
May all have whatever they want, need, and aspire to
May all be healed and whole again
May this planet be healed and whole again
May all beings awaken from their sleep of illusions and be liberated, enlightened, and free
May all realize their true spiritual nature and thus awaken the Buddha within
May all equally enjoy, actualize, and embody the innate Great Perfection

“May all beings remain free from suffering and the causes of suffering, which are non virtue and delusion.”

This quote from Ames made me think over the past few days. I expect it is from Buddhist text, which is far less tainted with “unnecessaries” than would be many other doctrines. Much of what has come from the East has more ‘purity of spiritual discipline’ than perhaps would Christian teachings.

Do you expect REB to have virtue and non-delusion with his obsessive sexual acts and surrounding himself and his followers with ‘ornate trippery’. He will not even let himself feel physical pain, as a way of ‘cleansing the soul’.

Those of you still in the FOF would do well to go back in these blog pages and review what Ames Gilbert has written. He was ‘close to the source’ in the FoF and much could be learned from him…..Nigel.

The author despises himself and feels less lucky than other men – then, thinking on what he has with his art-form, realizes that he would not ‘swop his lot’ with others…..

William Shakespeare
Sonnet 29

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

What I would desire for all on a spiritual/creative path for this coming year – a sense of self-worth, a sense of feeling part of our Mother Universe and the willingness to give of one’s Creative Self to others. I feel that brings the greatest happiness to all involved…..Nigel.

The Blog seems sleepy. Perchance to dream?
For all those who selfishly take pleasure in other peoples misfortunes: RB is rumored to be ill with a lingering pneumonia. (Well? We all knew he was sick and wouldn’t last forever.)

In 1976 (I believe), in a remark published in the Mt. Carmel Journal as part of a meeting transcript, he prophesied his own death in 2012, stating that it was “but a moment away.” So if he dies before then, his prophecy tally will be 0/4.

In a transcript of his remarks that circulated in two different forms back in about 1984 or 1985, one transcript said “I am not a prophet.” The other one said “I am a prophet.” Hedging his bets there.

Recently I was reading an article by a man who believes that aliens have been visiting the earth for thousands of years. He supplied numerous accounts from ancient China and the Middle East that he said were proof of alien encounters. Some were written descriptions, while others were very old paintings that he claimed represented space ships appearing to these early civilizations. One of the paintings was from Egypt — amidst the usual hieroglyphs was something that the author claimed was a flying saucer.

People see what they believe in. If you believe in aliens and space ships, that is what you will see, no matter where you look. If you believe in the Fourth Way, you will find proof for it in everything you see.

Just thought – the Board of Directors are going to have a real bitching session over what will happen to the FOF when Burton actually does ‘peg it’. Will Haven become top banana and ‘swan about the planet’ looking for remnants of conscious schools? There will be so much to post on the blogsite! Tee-hee…..Nigel.

I wonder if when Robert Burton dies there will be a play similar to the Carlos Castaneda leave taking…students covering up the seriousness of his longtime illness as long as possible, students disappearing with funds, students taking their own lives in grief. Good grief, I hope not!

There should be an executor that returns all funds as they do in a cooperative. Those that have paid in the most would receive the most of the estate. Wouldn’t it be great if the estate was sold and the resulting funds shared amongst the students who gave their lively hood and in some cases, their health, building the Fellowship of Friends physical empire.

I suppose the favored ‘boys’ of the inner circle will end up sharing the spoils with a few of Robert Burton’s right hand men and women. The trust that is probably in force should dissolve the organization, though, and compensate former students; should give them a return on their investment.

As long as “students” are still leaving. ( appreciated the update how many people left the fof and how any joined). The blog is worth it. Worthy to warn others and worthy to heal the people who eventually left. (As healing we need IMO).

Robert having a pneumonia….Lungs stand for grieving in the Chinese and Holistic medicine. Maybe he is human after all?

I do believe that people are more questioning. Lots of “ex students” are around the fellowship and the isolation of the fellowship is hardly possible with the internet and governments more aware about cult activities.

If you think of joining the fellowship of friends or pathway to presence or living presence? Think twice.

Leading a double life and have to be secretively and given goods and money and in many cases your body to a cult leader or live a life where you are on your own path and have to figure out your own life?

One of the traits of a sociopath/psychopath is that they put themselves and others in “unnecessary danger”. Hard luck REB, but you asked for it. May your name be erased from the ‘book of life’…..Nigel.

Just thought – with the news out of REB having AIDS (and probably dying FAST from it) there will be one helluva broohaha among anyone who has had sexual contact with him (or partners of those who have had contact with him) – they won’t need a mass suicide – there will be an epidemic…..
…..just think about it, FOFfers!!!!!…..Nigel

Yes, I agree, no need to panic, these are just rumors. However, maybe it will serve to make some think twice about indulging in some harmless sexual activity with the old Man No. 7, and to question why a “conscious being” would engage in such risky behavior with his beloved students.

People who have money very rarely die of AIDS nowadays. The treatment is expensive but effective in containing the infection. See Magic Johnson for instance who has been HIV positive since the early 90’s. For REB, money is no object, it is never his money.

Sorry to be optimistic about the possibility of Burton’s demise – through ‘nasty’ circumstances. I was going too far with my hope that it would be a shock to wake up anyone even thinking of leaving or questioning the structure of the FOF…..Nigel

“To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant’s conduct must be so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting.”

“To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant’s conduct must be ‘so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting.

In one case, People v Register, 60 NY2d 273, 469 NYS2d 599 (1983),while exploring the meaning of “depraved indifference recklessness” the Court of Appeals ruled that intoxication is not a defense or excuse to “depraved mind murder,” although it may be to intentional murder. Its analysis started with distinguishing reckless manslaughter from the “depraved indifference recklessness” necessary for murder:

“to bring defendant’s conduct within the murder statute, the People were required to establish also that defendant’s act was imminently dangerous and presented a very high risk of death to others and that it was committed under circumstances which evidenced a wanton indifference to human life or a depravity of mind. . . . . The crime differs from intentional murder in that it results not from a specific, conscious intent to cause death, but from an indifference to or disregard of the risks attending defendant’s conduct.” 60 NY2d at 274.”

Of all the secrets kept by the teachers, the origin of our school was perhaps the best kept secret of all. Of course, new students would often ask about our teachers, Jim and Carolyn Kuziak (aka “J&C”). Newcomers would pose questions about the teachers’ past, where they came from, how they acquired their knowledge, and other simple questions.

However, we quickly learned not to ask those kinds of questions, because they were rarely answered directly and they usually resulted in a subtle ad hominem attack on the person asking the question. By far, the most common response was, “that is gossip”, or “that is a formatory question”. The word “formatory” was a label for a kind of automatic thinking that involved no intention. The whole aim of our involvement in the school was to bring conscious intent and awareness to our behavior, and so such a critique was taken very seriously, generally resulting in submissive silence. Basically, instead of answering the question, the older student would make the person feel bad for even asking it in the first place.

Thus, most of us in the school did not know much at all about the school’s origin. Over time, when we had become the older students and new recruits asked us these same questions, we repeated the same justifications that were given to us years before. Partially, this is because we had accepted these excuses and had come to believe them. Indeed, I truly didn’t care about the school’s origins after a while. However, I distinctly remember the feeling of authority that would be generated with those prefabricated answers. Part of me wanted to protect my status as an older student, and I also didn’t want to reveal my own ignorance in the matter.

My Own Question

One day, after being in the group for only a couple of months, I asked the school’s original member the following questions: “Where did our teachers study? Where is their teacher now?”

She thought about it for a moment, and responded with a carefully worded reply. “Their teacher is in seclusion, trying to become a Man #7 .”

A Man #7! Now that was something to think about. That meant that he was already a Man #6, and therefore had powers of insight far exceeding ordinary people. If he was trying to become a Man #7, that meant he was close to attaining the ultimate level of enlightenment possible for a human!

The older student probably noticed my silence, and she became defensive. “My teachers gave up everything to start this school, and I know that if they were ever trying to become Sevens, I would do everything in my power to help them.” The suggestion was that our teachers were somehow helping their teacher, perhaps by sending money or some other assistance. Think of the implications! Unbeknownst to ordinary humanity, there was a secret network of conscious people struggling to escape this planet!

Despite my curiousity and interest in the new information, something struck me about her response. I must have subconsciously understood her defensiveness, because I clearly remember the next thought that came into my head: “prison”. For a brief moment, I suspected that she was actually covering up the fact that J&C’s teacher was in prison. However, I had no clear reason to mistrust her, and very soon forgot about the incident — at least, I forgot about it until I left the school three years later.

Seclusion Behind Bars, That Is

As I learned later, their teacher was indeed in prison. My intuition had been correct.

J&C studied under a man named James Vincent Randazzo, who ran a Fourth Way school called “The Spiral of Friends”. Randazzo, in turn, learned about The System from Robert Burton and his international “Fellowship of Friends”.

Randazzo’s legal troubles are well documented. In 1985, he was fined for poaching, and several automatic weapons were removed from his home by police. In 1989, Randazzo and his wife Colleen were convicted of sexually abusing and exploiting children. Four teenagers (two boys and two girls) were given cocaine and videotaped having sex with the couple. The Randazzos claimed the sex was done in the children’s own good, as treatment for depression and to boost their self-esteem. The court found otherwise. James was sentenced to seventeen and a half years in prison, and Colleen received ninety days in jail followed by a period of probation. In 1994, the Colorado courts refused Randazzo’s bid for an appeal.

Before these run-ins with the police, Jim and Carolyn were students of Randazzo in Grand Junction, Colorado. At some point in the mid 80’s, they left the group to start their own school. Randazzo told his remaining followers that the Kuziaks had stolen money from him, and that they would not get any endorsement from him.

The details are not entirely clear, as Randazzo has been described as a “Sicilian wheeler-dealer”, an excellent salesman skilled at manipulating people. In fact, during his trouble with the law, he never told his followers that he had to pay any fines, and he boasted “they could never pin anything on him”.

Coincidentally, Randazzo himself left his teacher’s school in much the same way that J&C apparently left Randazzo. Randazzo had run away from the Fellowship of Friends (FOF), stealing ranch donations and other funds. The leader of the FOF, Robert Burton, then denounced him as a criminal. Randazzo had left behind a single pair of pants with a broken zipper, and Burton (always interpreting events as if they symbolized some higher truth) believed this was proof that Randazzo was “damaged in that area” (ie, he had sexual problems).

This tradition of animosity between schools can even be traced back to Ouspensky, who made a very public split with Gurdjieff in order to start his own groups. However strange it may seem, this trend is actually very common among gurus in general, because in order to maintain a captive body of recruits they must present themselves as the purest source of truth available. Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad do a good job of describing this in their book, The Guru Papers:

Nor can gurus have any real connection with other supposed “super-humans” (other gurus) because of the inherent competition among them. Years ago, when we first became interested in gurus and Eastern concepts such as enlightenment, it initially seemed an oddity that all these supposedly enlightened beings did not seek out each other’s company. With each other they presumably could find deep and real understanding, and respite from always having to deal with minds at a lower level. But since disciples view their guru as a vehicle for their own salvation, they must believe that he can do the best for them. Consequently, the meeting of gurus, when it occurs (it rarely does), is always laden with heavy meaning, as the disciples watch very carefully to see who comes out best. Even the simplest acts (who goes to see whom) have implications of dominance. The fact is that gurus do not “hang out” together because the structure of the role makes it nigh impossible. (page 110)
It now seems clear to me that intense secrecy is an indication of probable corruption. When I asked about the NAW’s lineage, I was told a lie, because the true answer would have brought up questions about the legimacy of the school and its teachers. There are plenty of meditation groups who are quite public and open with their operations, and the crucial difference is not that they are “for beginners” — as other secretive cults would have us believe — but rather that they simply have nothing to hide.

‘. . .because in order to maintain a captive body of recruits they must present themselves as. . .’

Read: Perpetual need for narcissistic supply.

This applies to: Alexander Francis Horn and Sharon Gans (Theatre of All Possibilities), Robert Earl Burton (Fellowship of Friends), James Vincent Randazzo (The Spiral of Friends), Jim and Carolyn Kuziak (New American Wing), and other supposed elevated beings (gurus), just to name a few:

Narcissistic personality disorder is a pervasive disorder characterized by self-centeredness, lack of empathy, and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. As with other personality disorders, this disorder is an enduring and persistent pattern of behavior that negatively impacts many different life areas including social, family, and work relationships.

Narcissistic personality disorder is thought to be less common than other personality disorders such as borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and histrionic personality disorder. Narcissistic personality disorder is estimated to affect 1-percent of the adult population in the United States and is more common among men than women.

Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissism is a term commonly used to describe those who seemed more concerned with themselves than with others. It is important to distinguish between those who have narcissistic personality traits and those suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. Those with narcissistic personalities are often seen as arrogant, confident, and self-centered, but they do not have the exaggerated or grandiose view of their own abilities that characterizes narcissistic personality disorder.

The DSM-IV identifies the following symptoms:

•An exaggerated sense of one’s own abilities and achievements.
•A constant need for attention, affirmation, and praise.
•Persistent fantasies about attaining success and power.
•Exploiting other people for personal gain.
•A sense of entitlement and expectation of special treatment.
•A lack of empathy for others.

An official diagnosis can be made by a qualified mental health professional, and requires that the individual exhibit 5 of the 9 symptoms identified in the DSM-IV. Practitioners must also rule out other psychiatric disorders in order to make a diagnosis.

People with narcissistic personality disorder are typically described as arrogant, conceited, self-centered, and haughty. Because they imagine themselves as superior to others, they often insist on possessing items that reflect a successful lifestyle. Despite this exaggerated self-image, they are reliant on constant praise and attention to reinforce their self-esteem. As a result, those with narcissistic personality disorder are usually very sensitive to criticism, which is often viewed as a personal attack.

Other common traits of narcissistic personality disorder include the following:

•Preoccupation with fantasies that focus on unlimited success, power, intelligence, beauty, or love.

•Belief that he or she is “special” and unique, and can only be understood by other special people.

•Expectation that others will automatically go along with what he or she wants.

•Inability to recognize or identify with the feelings, needs, and viewpoints of others.

•Envy of others or a belief that others are envious of him or her.

•Hypersensitivity to insults (real or imagined), criticism, or defeat, possibly reacting with rage, shame and humiliation.

•Arrogant behavior and/or attitude

What Causes Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

The exact cause of narcissistic personality disorder is not known. However, many mental health professionals believe it results from extremes in child rearing. For example, the disorder might develop as the result of excessive pampering, or when a child’s parents have a need for their children to be talented or special in order to maintain their own self-esteem. On the other end of the spectrum, narcissistic personality disorder might develop as the result of neglect or abuse and trauma inflicted by parents or other authority figures during childhood. The disorder usually is evident by early adulthood.

“Girard Haven was born in March 1945 in Fort Benning, Georgia, and lived in North Carolina, Ohio and Utah before his family settled in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale a few weeks prior to his twelfth birthday. After receiving a degree in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1966, he spent the next seven years programming computers and hiking in the mountains of California and the Southwestern United States. Although he had always been interested in spiritual matters, apart from reading a few books and dabbling with yoga, Girard made no serious attempts to pursue them until July 1973, when he simultaneously learned of the Fellowship of Friends and began to read In Search of the Miraculous by Peter Ouspensky. Upon encountering the idea of self-remembering, he immediately recognized that he had found the purpose which had been lacking in his life. Three days later, he joined the Fellowship, where he met Robert Burton and accepted him as his Teacher. In July 1975, Girard Haven became the center director in Los Angeles. Subsequently, he also directed the centers in San Francisco and London, England, before returning to Apollo at the end of 1983, where he remained for the next eleven years. At various points during these years, he served on the Boards of Directors of both the Fellowship of Friends and Renaissance Vineyard and Winery, and held the positions of President of the Fellowship and Dean of the Fellowship Council. His primary role in the Fellowship has been to teach the practical methods of personal evolution taught by Robert Burton. In this capacity, he has traveled to Fellowship centers around the world and has led over one thousand meetings. He also maintains active correspondence with Fellowship members worldwide. Some of this correspondence has been published under the title With Love, Girard, while excerpts from transcripts of some of the meetings have been collected in the book Notes from a Conscious Teaching. In addition, in 1983 Girard Haven started the Fellowship Forum, a monthly publication for members for the discussion of the ideas and methods practiced in the Fellowship. The material that he wrote during his ten years as editor and publisher of the Forum was eventually used as the basis of the books Creating a Soul and The Prize is Eternity. Girard Haven now lives at Isis, where he continues to serve both his own evolution and the members of the Fellowship by writing, teaching, traveling, and remembering himself.”

What keeps the FOF alive are the so called “beloved students”. Sadly, each of them must live within their own spectrum of doubt and disappointment. What I learned in the FOF only became useful to me in retrospect, after graduation. Members who take on the ‘community themed templates’, forgetting their original aim, become weakened and will not realize the importance of DISTANCE and the TIME required to recover from Sticky Fellowship Sleepiness!

Get real people. Tinnitus was a late fifteenth and/or early sixteenth century Phlegmish Renaissance painter working in the style of (or school of) Hieronymus Bosch; about whom very little is known. As very little is known about the life of Hieronymus Bosch, even less is known about Tinnitus. But what is certain, is an aspect of his genre of painting, much like Bosch’s where there are grotesque scenes of humans, and other weird creatures, doing all manner of imaginable, and
unimaginable, horrible acts to themselves and others, in which he depicts penises being inserted into ears of people. This, one might say, is the signature of the obscure Tinnitus. So, by examining paintings with this sort of depiction and recognizing their similarity of style and the nuance of painting technique – especially the renderings of the penises and their secretions, experts (not the least of which was esteemed eclectic art historian and connoisseur Bernard Berenson) have formulated the personae of the secretive painter that goes by this name. In honor of this designation, or is that assignation, the medical community has named a particular disease of the inner circle, I mean inner ear, that is a type of infection, the symptoms, and affect, of which, is wringing in the ears. There is no known cure for this condition in modern medicine but some alternative medical practitioners say that exorcism and/or circumcision might help. (As an aside, the dead giveaway of a Tinnitus painting is not the penises but the earlobes. Some people can actually ‘read’ the earlobes and tell the fortunes of the persons quite accurately. This, and the ‘reading’ of ear wax secretions, have come to be known as Phlegmology.)

House of Cards (Yuba County)- An elderly Northern Californian man in his 70’s seeing his doctor for unexplained tinnitus and weight loss, also seemed to be displaying symptoms of mental confusion and delusions of grandeur, explaining to his “mere earth-thing” doctor that the ringing in his ears was actually “Horn blowing angels”, trumpeting in such a “high frequency that only a man of his self-inflated ego could hear”, and calling him “to paradise” for all his hard work getting away with blowing sooo many of his followers for sooo many years.

In addition to obviously displaying the classic symptoms of Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder Man Number Seven, he was also referred to the Neurologist on staff at Yuba County Medical Center, who diagnosed him with a rare from of Myopic Alzheimer’s disease.

Unlike the symptoms of complete short-term and long-term memory loss that sufferers of typical Alzheimer’s disease usually experience, when questioned further about the details of his work history, the man appeared unable to recall anything about the past, referred only to the present and everyone in the room as “Dear”, claimed to hear the voices of dearly departed dead people, and seemed only able to remember himself as the center of the universe, claiming “this is all part of a higher plan to crucify him”.

The man was later admitted to the Psychiatric Ward for further evaluation

Meanwhile, despite the hospitalization of their founder and CEO, managers at the Fellowship of Friends, Inc. Disaster Hedge Fund were secretly smiling as shares of their hedge fund continued to rise. “We prepared for the worst,” said spokesfollower Linda T. Madoff, “and now it’s all paying off.”

The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my morning’s romanza,)

All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever money will buy,

The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably reaps,

The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building and he domiciles there,

Nothing for any one but what is for him, near and far are for him, the ships in the offing,

The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for anybody.

He puts things in their attitudes,
He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love,
He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.

He is the Answerer,
What can be answer’d he answers, and what cannot be answer’d he shows how it cannot be answer’d.

A man is a summons and challenge,
(It is vain to skulk—do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you hear the ironical echoes?)

Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction,
He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also.

Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely by day or by night,

He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs.

His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is,

The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.

Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue,

He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and any man translates himself also,

One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees how they join.

He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President at his levee,

And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field,

And both understand him and know that his speech is right.

He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,
He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another,
Here is our equal appearing and new.

Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow’d the sea,

And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,

And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them,
No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it or has follow’d it,

No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there.

The English believe he comes of their English stock,
A Jew to the Jew he seems, a Russ to the Russ, usual and near, removed from none.

Whoever he looks at in the traveler’s coffee-house claims him,
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, the German is sure, the Spaniard is sure, and the island Cuban is sure,

The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or Paumanok sound, claims him.

The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood,
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes them,

They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they are so grown.

The indications and tally of time,
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs,

Time, always without break, indicates itself in parts,
What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their words,

The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark, but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark,

The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,
His insight and power encircle things and the human race,
He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the human race.

The singers do not beget, only the Poet begets,
The singers are welcom’d, understood, appear often enough, but rare has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems, the Answerer,

(Not every century nor every five centuries has contain’d such a day, for all its names.)

The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible names, but the name of each of them is one of the singers,
The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-singer, night-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer, weird-singer, or something else.

All this time and at all times wait the words of true poems,
The words of true poems do not merely please,
The true poets are not followers of beauty but the august masters of beauty;

The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and fathers,

The words of true poems are the tuft and final applause of science.

Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health, rudeness of body, withdrawnness,

Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness, such are some of the words of poems.

The sailor and traveler underlie the makers of poems, the Answerer,
The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist, all these underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer.

The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, stories, essays, daily life, and everything
else,

They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,

They do not seek beauty, they are sought,
Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.

They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,

They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,
Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to learn one of the meanings,

To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again.

It’s not that the emperor wears no clothes at the 1,171-acre property in the Sierra foothills with a winery, cemetery and main building meant to resemble a French castle, says Elena Haven.
The old folk tale speaks of adults afraid to say their ruler is naked. But Haven, a former member of the Yuba County-based Fellowship of Friends, said silence surrounded the colorful clothes — the salmon pink silk suit, shiny blue shoes or bright yellow pants — leader Robert Earl Burton, 69, sometimes wore.

“It’s the picture of the whole phenomena,” Haven, 49, said of the religious group that she calls a cult and that she left in 2007 after 17 years as a member.

That Fellowship members don’t comment about Burton’s clothing during gatherings at the group’s headquarters in the foothills community of Oregon House is a symbol of more serious problems, Haven said.

The 6-foot, 4-inch silver-haired Burton, a one-time elementary school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area, is the unchallenged ruler of the Fellowship and doesn’t face questions, she said.

Not about his living like a king, not about a lifestyle said to rival a ruler in the last days of the Roman empire, not about the nuclear Armageddon that Burton proclaimed would happen in 2006, not about whether the Fellowship is following the “Fourth Way” system of spiritual development taught by two 20th-century Russian philosophers and mystics, Haven said.

“If you challenge him you have to leave the cult,” she said. “No one can understand how crazy this can get.”

A fresco-style ceiling painting that includes a depiction of a man with an erection is an example of the excesses of the Fellowship, Haven said.

Last month Haven did something other former members said no one had attempted since the Fellowship established its Sierra foothills site in 1971.

The 5-foot, 3-inch dark-haired Haven began picketing in July at the Rices Crossing Road entrance to the Fellowship property 29 miles outside of Marysville. Most members live in a bubble, unaware of what takes place in the Fellowship’s inner circle, Haven said. Her protests came as the group said members from around the world — the Fellowship has centers for students in many countries — were gathering.

“How many more boys, Dear?” read one of her signs, a reference to what Haven said are the half-dozen young men constantly in Burton’s company and known within the Fellowship as his boys. “Dear” is the term Burton uses to address members.

The Fellowship reaction to her signs was swift, Haven said. They photographed her, she said. They called the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department. When Haven returned the next day to picket again, the Fellowship had put two trucks and a tractor to block the space where she had parked her car, Haven said. A member shouted several times at her, Haven said.

“I was shaking I was so afraid,” she recalled, puzzled by the strong reaction to one woman with a few picket signs. “One person standing on the side presents no threat to anyone.”

Before the end of the month Haven was in a Yuba County Superior Court courtroom arguing against a lawyer for the Fellowship, which sought a court order to keep Haven away from its headquarters.

When she spoke in court about what she said was Burton’s conduct, the judge said it sounded like Haven was accusing Burton of wrongdoing.

“I am not,” Haven answered. “I do not think being homosexual is a crime.”

The Fellowship more than a quarter-century ago did not allow such sexual behavior.

Homosexuality — along with smoking, firearms and hitting with fists — was prohibited for members in a 1980 guide. By then the group had been at its Yuba County property for nearly a decade. The Fellowship began in the Bay Area and, in 1971, looking for a nearby retreat, settled upon the Sierra foothills land in Oregon House.

Burton was the leader.

From elementary school to the Sierra foothills

In 1967, Robert Earl Burton was a 27-year-old teacher at Springhill Elementary in the Bay Area, coming to work in a coat and tie, carrying a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle and talking about sports.

“He was kind of one of the stars,” recalled Carol Blackburn, who taught at Springhill when Burton was there. “Everybody loved him.”

After a school break he returned, transformed.

He was dressed like a hippie, complete with headband, recalled Blackburn.

Burton resigned his teacher job early in 1967 and in the book “Self-Remembering,” a collection of short statements by him, Burton said that six months later that “Influence C” – 44 angels who include Walt Whitman, Buddha and Abraham Lincoln — revealed themselves to him.

“Life after death instantly became a fact,” he wrote.

Within a decade Fellowship leader Burton had a blue Rolls Royce with the personalized license plate “Oracle.”

On March 19, 1976, a “crystallization” occurred, Burton declared.

“I experienced a conscious birth, like a woman delivering a baby,” Burton wrote. “It came upon me. There was a bolt of lightning, smoke and an earthquake. My higher centers fused. World 6 and 12 were there. It lasted for about 15 seconds. The smoke then vanished.”

“It was as if someone had shot a bullet between my eyes, and I was looking at them unmoved,” he said.

Fellowship members and their children came to live in houses around the Oregon House property of the Fellowship and followed guidelines – since changed – on conduct that included wearing contact lenses rather than glasses, using an English accent when speaking and not using contractions in speech.

Bruce Wodhams, 58, now superintendent at the same Lafayette School District in the East Bay hills where Burton once taught, worked in the early 1980s as a school administrator in the Yuba County community of Dobbins near the Fellowship headquarters.

Wodhams remembers students whose parents were Fellowship members telling him the youths weren’t to use contractions when speaking.

“The point,” he said, was “to make you think all the time about what you’re saying.”

Haven joined as a 30-year-old in 1990 in London at one of the Fellowship centers after finding a bookmark of the group in a philosophical text she was reading about the Fourth Way — intended to provide the West with a system of spiritual development that develops the body, mind and the emotions.

The mind and its motivations had been a consuming interest since her mother shot and killed herself when Haven was 8 years old.

“I wanted to understand why people did that,” said Haven, who began reading philosophy as a teenager.

She said the Fourth Way philosophy is of value but that Burton and the Fellowship no longer practice it.

Haven agrees with a key assertion of a 1996 lawsuit filed against the Fellowship by a former Yuba College student who said Burton had seduced him.

“Fellowship of Friends is a cult whose sole purpose, despite its claims supporting its tax-exempt status, is to satisfy the sexual, financial and power needs of Robert Burton, the leader,” the suit stated. “Burton’s word is law and cannot be questioned because he is ‘awake,’ while his followers are ‘asleep’ and therefore cannot think for themselves.”

The 1996 lawsuit was settled before going to trial — the terms remain confidential.

The Fellowship family – and the biological one

Haven in 1998 made what she calls the biggest mistake of her life – deciding to leave her 11-year-old daughter Daniela with the girl’s father, whom Haven had separated from years earlier.

Fellowship members, Haven said, are told that “families are biological – that they have no meaning.”

Haven said she’d heard how hundreds of other women had done the same thing with family members. And she left her native country of Columbia for Oregon House without her daughter.

“Cults induce brainwashing — an inducement into an ideology that then gets practiced,” Haven said. “You are not supposed to be leaving your family, you’re supposed to be becoming free of your unnecessary ties.”

She regrets the impact her leaving had on her daughter’s life. “A child is a wonderful thing to have,” Haven said.

Haven’s later marriage to Girard Haven, senior minister of the Fellowship, ended because of differences the two had over the Yuba County-based religious group, she said.

In 2007, after three years of taking care of an elderly Fellowship member with Alzheimer’s, Haven said she asked for some help — and that the Fellowship banned her from speaking about the situation involving the 87-year-old woman.

“I was treated as though I was saying something wrong,” added Haven, who said she helped pay for additional care for the woman.

Haven said the Fellowship strips members of the lives they led before joining the Fellowship and leaves them in a cult where only their money matters.

Former member Susan Zannos, 74, who now lives in Southern California, said the financial demands on members – including such fees as $100 to be photographed with Burton — are constant.

“Every time you turn around you’re getting nickled and dimed,” Zannos said of requests for money that also include substantial teaching payments to the Fellowship.

Zannos, a member for three decades starting in 1976, said Burton is “the wizard behind the curtain.”

The Fellowship’s lure is simple, she said.

“Here’s this place where everything is spelled out,” Zannos said, “and everything is safe.”

Sid McCarty, 74, left the Fellowship in 2006 after 28 years as a member.

“It doesn’t have a heart,” he said of the organization. Departing meant, “I could be myself again.”

Another former member said many of those who stay in the Fellowship wonder what will happen if they leave.

Nikea Lea Erwin, 30, a member from 1996 to 2007, said true believers have invested their lives in the Fellowship story of conscious evolution and fear how they would fare emotionally outside on their own.

At the entrance in Oregon House to the Fellowship, Haven returned regularly in July to again picket after a temporary court order keeping her 50 yards from the property. Ames Gilbert, 57, a Nevada County resident who was in the group from 1978 to 1994, joined to picket with her.

“In the Fellowship there is no graduation,” Gilbert said, wondering about a school of philosophy that never lets go of its students.

The remote site of the Fellowship, in what’s been called the “hidden Sierra” because no major highway runs through the region, benefits Burton by keeping members close and away from communities where they could see life outside Fellowship, Gilbert said.

“The isolation in Yuba County really helps him,” said Gilbert.

Protester’s goal: ‘Be a huge pebble in their shoe’

While the Fellowship has its critics, 64-year-old Tom Richards is not among them. His family has owned 6,000 acres in the foothills since 1942 and the Fellowship property is next to Richards’ ranch in Oregon House.

He recalled a friend visiting from Redding and complaining that the Fellowship was a cult.

Richards responded, “They have a little tiny cult,” and referring his friend’s membership in a traditional religion, added, “You have a big cult.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Richards said.

Haven, however, does worry about the Fellowship – and was not looking forward to a return to court for a scheduled Aug. 8 hearing on the Fellowship’s try for a permanent order to restrict her picketing. When Haven called the Yuba County Superior Court late in July she learned the Fellowship had dropped its legal action.

Rick Ross, who heads a New Jersey-based institute that studies cults, said the group’s initial reaction to take Haven to court over her picketing shows the impact of her actions.

“It’s powerful, in particular, when former members do this,” said Ross, who testified in March in a civil case in federal court in Sacramento that he considers the Fellowship a cult.

Ford Greene, the attorney who represented the former Yuba College student in the 1996 lawsuit against Burton and the Fellowship, said Haven has stuck with her challenge to the group despite the legal action the Fellowship filed over her picketing.

“She wasn’t going to be buffaloed and intimidated and go away,” Greene said.

Haven has rented out her three-bedroom, two-bath home in Oregon House to provide her with some income and pays $250 a month to stay in a 20-foot-long, 7-foot-wide trailer.

She misses some of the comforts of her own home but is happy to be out of the Fellowship after 17 years.

She writes often on a Web site popular with many former Fellowship members who say the Internet can alert people intrigued by the group. Members once left without others knowing why they departed, Haven said, but now their reasons are posted for anyone to read on the Web site.

“The Fellowship cannot hurt me more than it has already hurt me,” Haven wrote in one post. “I may not be able to stop them but I’ll be a huge pebble in their shoe until the end of time.”

“Each prospective student who does not join in the next 20 years,” she said, “is worth all the trouble.”

nigel,
i don’t know if a blanket statement can cover the entire spectrum of ’causes’ — fear is no doubt a factor, along with delusional thinking, ‘magical thinking,’ denial, vanity… by enabling the ‘secondary narcissist’ (rb), in a convoluted way the sheep satisfies his own ‘primary narcissism’ – vicariously if not directly…. and it gets more complicated as you peel back the onion — the individual carries baggage/garbage from their own background, family constellations,etc, and projects it onto the situation… for a variety of reasons the sheep ‘subconsciously’ seeks an authority figure, for whatever reason they feel the need to be lead, told what to do, how to think… maybe in some cases mommy and daddy didn’t provide the right kind of support during the formative years of childhood… etc.

“”Loving oneself,” is the “libidinal complement to the egoism of the instinct of self-preservation.” We all have impulses to nourish ourselves and to protect ourselves from danger; these impulses are bound up with our desires, and we can’t neatly separate our sexual desires (directed at other humans) from our inwardly directed desire to care for ourselves…. this basic, sexually charged desire directed at the self is “primary” or “normal” narcissism…. primary narcissism is contrasted with “secondary narcissism” which arises in pathological states… producing megalomania. The secondary narcissism of the mentally ill is… a magnified, extreme manifestation of primary narcissism which exists in all individuals.”

I’ve been trying to get to grips with this primary/secondary narcissism thing – it it that anyone involved with perpetration of these – how shall I put it in a way that sounds not too acerbic? – WEIRD ACTIVITIES, derives some sort of self-centred elevation of their ‘twisted sense of Self’? I was a single heterosexual male whilst in the FOF, in California and, although invited to dinner by REB, was never sexually approached. Which leads to the question – what sort of male is REB looking for, and what perverted pleasure does he derive from these people?…..Nigel.

nigel,
i think accounts from ‘whalerider’ and others here clearly indicate the state of mind which can lead to feeding burton’s ‘secondary’ narcissism…. first there’s the ‘hook’ — the ‘mark’ assumes the belief perpetrated by the fof, that burton is indeed the one and only conscious being on the planet…. naive, gullible fools do really believe burton to be the only conscious being on the planet, that’s the ‘hook’ and once the ‘hook’ is in, once it’s “under the skin,” it’s easy for burton to ‘angle’ and to manipulate the ‘mark’ in order to make him do whatever is suggested…. this even goes so far as to act against one’s own best interests and free will…. the ‘mark’ will do the bidding and act on the will of “the teacher” because of what he believes the “teacher” to be…. and in some twisted way, vicariously and by proximity and close ‘association’ with the “teacher,” the ‘mark’ does derive some degree of imagined ‘status’ — within the organization yes, but especially within his own mind. in most cases, said ‘status’ is of a much different nature than is imagined by the ‘mark.’ (with some distance and hindsight it becomes clear that doing sexual favors for the “teacher” confers nothing but the ‘status’ of a whore). a heterosexual male will find the homosexual act with the ‘teacher’ to be repulsive and opposed to his own nature, but it’s not the sexual act which the ‘student’ seeks, it’s the imagined ‘wisdom’ of the teacher, the imagined ‘enlightenment’ that might be derived and the imagined ‘status’ conferred by a closer association with the “teacher” appeals to the ‘mark’s’ own vanity and narcissism. the ‘mark’ imagines that he is ‘extra-special’ because he’s been picked from an already very small and select group to “sit directly at the feet of the master.” and so vanity and narcissism in the ‘student’ plays with imagination to bring about the situation.

as for the sorts of “perverted pleasure” derived — the answer is all too clear from the annals of this blog (pun intended)… and as for “what sort of male” he’s looking for, maybe the foregoing addresses it somewhat but imo a detail such as this seems a waste of time and energy — it’s enough to know that burton is a predator, he preys on those who are young, those who are seeking a direction in life, those who for whatever reason need an authority figure to direct them, he preys especially upon the unsuspecting, naive, gullible, foolish or those who are otherwise in some way vulnerable: that’s a general description of the larger flock of sheep he draws in, and not just those with whom he has sexual contact.

I think and feel this is a very important post. Anyone ‘listening in’ and trying to make sense of their ‘entanglement’ would do well to read this again and again. Feeling special because of a ‘conscious being’s’ supposed ‘influence’ does not open the gateway to awakening/enlightenment…..Nigel.

The Agency can neither confirm nor deny it’s involvement with these rumors. Some say that it’s just punishment, others say it’s the Law of Karma. Personally, I have verified that God has a sense of humor.

Robert looks for “solar”, types, who will do what he asks. For example:
Robert will take you out for lunch and you order a hamburger. Robert might say “I think you should take the chicken”. If you answer; ” No thanks Robert I stick to my hamburger”, he knows you will not give in easily to other of his “requests” and he will not approach you very soon. He tests his victims.

There are stories that he would not approach male “students” for years and then he would. Why? Who knows.

The other reason might be that you are not his type or have the “wrong alchemy”.

Robert shows characteristics of a pedophile who slowly lures his victim into having sex.

Re: the mark and his or her SPF: their naivety, gullibility, foolishness, or compliance…

IMO, having been through it myself, I find it is healthier and more productive to look at the mark’s underlying issues, the root causes that lead to their cult dependence…as having strong unmet needs , or being overly “needy”, that attracts them to the guru-narcissist, rather just referring to the traits of being too trusting or somehow vapid.

We all are equal in our need to feel special in some way and not regarded by others as a fool…some more than others.

IMHO, addressing these unmet needs is the path to healing the narcissistic wound and to fostering a more mature, well-adjusted, secondary narcissistic personality style, thus raising one’s emotional IQ and allowing one to successfully manage their lives and mood-states.

Cults “are for those who need them and know they need them.” In other words…for the needy and not for the independent, free-thinking type of person wishing to evolve AND mature.

It is clear to me that the style of narcissism that Burton’s rape factory promotes is intellectually toxic and emotionally regressive, to say the least.

Burton and his ilk refuse to see the sleep in their consciousness, just as they disregard the gnawing consciousness of their crimes that arises in their dreams.

From the story told by former Alex Horn people, Robert was, in their eyes humiliated repeatedly. Having been given a ‘task’ to stop requesting sex from male heterosexual students, he failed miserably and was kicked out. We can only guess what that meant to him…. I remember Robert to be a little bit vengeful, his ‘shocks’ on the negative side – like the time we strode down a garden path arm in arm and he firmly walked me to the right side, into the roses, scratching my legs and ‘running my stockings’. !

The more I read posts like 68, 72, 73 above the more I am seeing the connections. What I mean is that there are many ways to express the same or similar ideas. In the end it does not matter which words are used or which concepts are used as they are all tools to help us get to a destination, an understanding or a wisdom, a knowledge. “Know Thyself“ comes to mind.

Upon reading the list of positive emotions as given in the Abraham teachings, I was always struck by the fact that `knowledge` is way up there on the scale right next to joy. I had previously not even recognized knowledge as an emotion. Now it is all coming together.

A hunger for knowledge, an addiction even, was a key driving force for my joining the fof. There were other driving forces as well but without this first one I would have passively let it pass by.
I had read all of Carlos Casteñeda`s books which dealt with a search for knowledge from a guru. I clearly remember thinking to myself that if I ever came across such a teacher that I would let everything go and take the chance, the gamble. Later when I got into the Fourth Way material I felt that this had to be one of those areas to explore. I then also got into Tibetan Buddhism and found it and 4th Way to be parallel teachings with the difference that the 4th Way promised to be much faster and after all I was 43 when I found the ad for the fof. Time was a factor or so I thought.

So I think it is a little incomplete to pinpoint naivety or a lack of independent thinking or a need for support and acceptance, or a quest for a father figure as a weakness which leads one to join a cult. I used to agree but now I have changed my opinion about it all. I now see the strength and courage that I had. I would never encourage anyone to choose this particular cult but then again nobody has ever asked me for my opinion. That`s my two cents` worth for today.
Cheers!!!

no doubt, by going through the experience everyone learned a “life lesson.” and as it’s said “hindsight is 20/20” — it seems that it’s possible for the human mind to “rationalize” anything…. look no further than burton and his followers for example… or yourself, (or myself).

obviously each individual has their perspective and to assume or imply that any one perspective will present or contain the entire, complete picture, is… i don’t know what that is… maybe a little unfair, an unreal expectation. combinations and syntheses of individual perspectives is the point… thank you for yours.

yes as you say of your own case renald, i think it may be safe to assume that the “quest” for “truth” and knowledge was a motivating factor which brought most folks into the fofship. my opinion here: i don’t see an attempt to satisfy the thirst for knowledge as necessarily a “strength” or “courageous” — although it might be argued that it takes a sort of “courage” to venture into unknown territory (joining a cult)… but it could just as easily be said that joining a cult is more an act of naivete’ than of courage — however one views it, life-lessons were learned from the experience, no doubt about it.

speaking personally, and with hindsight, “the search” was something i was simply driven to do — your word for that drive is “addiction” — i ask; where is the “courage” in addiction? again, it might be argued that an addiction has a type of “strength” insofar as it is a, or THE controling factor in one’s life…. but imo an “addiction” is not so much a “conscious” type of strength, it’s simply something one is compelled to do, for whatever reason(s).

(in my previous post 68 the attempt was to get beyond the initial search for knowledge which lead myself — and probably most of us here — to join a cult. i was trying in my own way in 68 to explore some of the other inter/intrapersonal motives and incentives for participation is a cult — starting with the “swallowing of the hook” and what happens once certain beliefs are implanted. my intention in 68 was to begin to ‘tease-out’ some of the material beneath the cult entanglements — so to speak).

not to be too self-congratulatory, but i see my decision, my efforts and the whole damned process involved in leaving ‘the fold,’ as a far truer measure of courage and strength. but that’s only one perspective.

and now for something completely different… it’s so good to be out of “the fold.”

Are you trying to say that ‘knowledge used becomes a joy’? It works that way for me. Certainly, I think/feel that ‘non-identification’ gets easier as one grows older and, hopefully grows in proportion to Selfhood and that Self wanting to help others within the sphere of ‘one’s speciality’ (as Gurdjieff would phrase it – for a guru/teacher) – or own’s Life Work, as the common phrase goes. “Just let it go”, for me, becomes a phrase to use many times daily, as silly to difficult little denying forces to common or noble aims take their course.

Learning from the mistakes that I have heard that REB has made and not repeating them is knowledge well used. Sex, at my age (and with the tranquilizers that I take), becomes a nourishing healing/creative force and not something for self-seeking voraciousness.

And, finally, the basic knowledge of types/centers of gravity/features is still useful out of the mayhem of the FOF.

Here’s a Mars-Jovial with Power, Vanity and Tramp who liks to make a financial killing…..

Dairy Owner Combats Mozzarella Monopoly

By PAUL ELIAS
The Associated Press
Friday, November 24, 2006; 4:14 AM

BANGOR, Calif. — Think fresh mozzarella and buffalo tomatoes are more likely to come to mind than water buffalos. But true mozzarella can only be made from the rich, fatty milk of the water buffalo. For years, chefs and gourmands in the United States would settle for nothing less than the smooth, white balls of mozzarella di bufala, airlifted from Italy.

Hanns Michael Heick is hoping to crack Italy’s mozzarella monopoly in a quixotic quest to produce the finest mozzarella this side of Naples.

Hanns Michael Heick, owner of Bubalus Bubalis, Inc., samples mozzarella cheese at his ranch in Bangor, Calif., Sept. 30, 2006. The buffalo are the main ingredient in Heick’s quest to produce the finest mozzarella cheese this side of Naples.

“There was a point in my life where I didn’t even know water buffalo existed,” said Heick, who was born in Vienna and spent much of his adult life as a wine exporter. “Now I’m an expert.”

His water buffalo, about 200 head, roam a 50-acre spread in the remote foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains.

Fresh mozzarella has become a $48 billion specialty food trend in the United States. Heick and his Italian-born wife, Grazia Perrella, whose family has produced mozzarella for three generations, operate the larger of two mozzarella-producing water buffalo dairies in the country.

The average American ate a record 10 pounds of mozzarella last year, twice the rate of a decade ago, according to data compiled by the University of Wisconsin. But nearly all of it was made from cow’s milk and manufactured by a handful of large, industrial dairies.

For centuries, Italian cheese makers dominated the gourmet mozzarella market, due largely to the domestication of large herds of imported water buffalo during Da Vinci’s lifetime. How and when the water buffalo _ a common beast of burden that originated in Asia _ got to Italy is a mystery.

Unlike other cheeses that improve with age, mozzarella is best served as soon as it is made. Airlifting fresh mozzarella from Italy is costly. The freight charges can exceed the cost of the cheese of itself, which fetches upward of $20 a pound.

Many argue it is worth the expense. Fresh buffalo mozzarella is silkier and tastier than the leathery, plastic-wrapped cow milk mozzarella lining grocery store shelves and grated onto millions of pizzas.

So far, Heick is managing to squeeze out $1 million in annual sales, an increase from the $350,000 the dairy took in four years ago.

“If we had more milk, we could sell much more cheese,” said Heick, who plans to expand his water buffalo herd in the next few years.

Still, the dairy is a long way from profitability, held down by the expenses of an operation that is spread across California at three locations. The herd lives in Bangor. Buffalo ready for milking are shipped to San Bernadino and the cheese is made in Gardenia.

By this time next year, Heick said the entire operation will be located at the Bangor site, which is now being outfitted with new refrigerators, pasteurizing machines and all the other equipment needed for a dairy. He’ll then work to improve on the annual mozzarella output of 150,000 pounds a year, a pittance compared to the 2.14 billion pounds of various cheeses California churns out annually.

In the meantime, he is attracting a small but growing following at farmers markets, high-end grocers and restaurants across the country that order direct.

“Customers can’t believe the quality of it,” said David Gilbert, co-owner of the Old Yellowstone Garage restaurant in Jackson Hole, Wyo. He orders 15 to 30 pounds of Heick’s cheese a week and uses it on lasagna, pizza and other dishes. “It’s comparable to what’s shipped from Italy.”

Some thoughts about Essence (a subject I hark on about), Development and Evolution…..Nigel.

All excerpts taken from the book “In Search of the Miraculous”, by P.D. Ouspensky. Published by Arkana – Penguin Books

A very important moment in the work on oneself is when a man begins to distinguish his personality and his essence. A man’s real I, his individuality, can grow only from his essence. It can be said that a man’s individuality is his essence, grown up, mature. But in order to enable essence to grow up, it is first of all necessary to weaken the constant pressure of personality upon it, because the obstacles to the growth of essence are contained in personality.

Certain teachings compare man to a house of four rooms. Man lives in one room, the smallest and poorest of all, and until he is told of it, he does not suspect the existence of the other rooms which are full of treasures. When he does learn of this he begins to seek the keys to these rooms and especially the fourth, the most important, room. And when a man has found his way into this room he really becomes the master of his house, for only then does the house belong to him wholly and forever.

The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear.

One thing alone is certain, that man’s slavery grows and increases. Man is becoming a willing slave. He no longer needs chains. He begins to grow fond of his slavery, to be proud of it.
And this is the most terrible thing that can happen to a man.

In order to do it is necessary to be.

There is no compulsory, mechanical evolution.
Evolution is the result of conscious struggle.

The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness, and ‘consciousness’ cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and ‘will’ cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and ‘doing’ cannot be the result of things which ‘happen’.

‘Progress’ and ‘Civilization’, in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as a result of conscious efforts. They cannot appear as the result of unconscious mechanical actions.

Of the desires expressed, the one which is most right is the desire to be ‘master of oneself’,
because without this nothing else is possible.

Everything is dependent on everything else,
everything is connected, nothing is separate.
Therefore everything is going in the only way it can go. If people were different everything would be different. They are what they are, so everything is as it is.

The evolution of man can be taken as the development in him of those powers and possibilities which never develop by themselves, that is, mechanically. Only this kind of development, only this kind of growth, marks the real evolution of man. There is, and there can be, no other kind of evolution whatever.

Re. 75 Ton:
Sorry to take so long. I had forgotten that I had posted and did not get back to the blog till now.

“ speaking personally, and with hindsight, “the search” was something i was simply driven to do — your word for that drive is “addiction” — i ask; where is the “courage” in addiction? again, it might be argued that an addiction has a type of “strength” insofar as it is a, or THE controling factor in one’s life…. but imo an “addiction” is not so much a “conscious” type of strength, it’s simply something one is compelled to do, for whatever reason(s). “

The search, hunger for knowledge, is one thing.
It is an addiction and I still have it. It does of course contribute to other actions or inactions but that can lead to another habit and another down the line.
I never was addicted to joining cults or looking for gurus. Far from it. Some obviously are. That is what I was referring to when I pointed out that for me it took courage to actually get off my book-reading-ass, quit a career a mere 6 months from a paid-up company pension plan, give up my home which was about a year from being totally paid up, move across the country to the nearest center not knowing if I would end up on the street, all that at 43 years of age and without marketable skills.

Nigel: Knowledge in the sense I spoke about above has much to do with the emotion felt when suddenly connections can be seen to exist where previously they were separate bits. Yes, that leads to joy, a word used to describe an energy level, a physical vibration at the top of the scale. I suspect that it rates so high because once one has the knowledge of how to get there, well it is just like having the combination to a bank vault with unlimited riches now available which were not before. It is like being lost and not knowing how to get home and all of sudden one reaches the top of the hill and lo and behold there in front of you is your city. Whoooaaahhhhh! Jumping up and down joy. It just does not get any better.
I get goose bumps just writing about it.
Why? Because of imagination, a useful tool.
I just want to continue and go on and on and milk it for all I can get and stay in the zone.
Thank you for asking. Cheers!!

re. 81 nigel
“ The evolution of man can be taken as the development in him of those powers and possibilities which never develop by themselves, that is, mechanically. Only this kind of development, only this kind of growth, marks the real evolution of man. There is, and there can be, no other kind of evolution whatever.“
I quote this part but the entire post is a mish mash of half truths and out and out lies. What he fails to say is that there is someone who can lead you to conscious work on yourself and that person is him. That is the hook mentionned above in another post. That is the hook the gurus depend upon otherwise they will have to go on reparing typewriters and selling carpets like G. did before he put together his band of followers as did the future generations of charlatans.
Actually our desires and expectations come to fruition when we get out of the way. People resist change because they somehow think that the new whatever has to be permanent and so stagnation tends to become permanent. It just does not occur to them that if they allow a change today they can allow another change tomorrow. The ball and chain is a lie, it does not exist. Those who benefit from the lie want you to continue believing in it because that is how they gain and keep their slaves. We are naturally free. Enough said.
Cheers!!

Just a thought. Years ago back bookmarks were pretty well the only way contact was made for recruits. In the last few years a thousand times more potential recruits were contacted through the internet. Therefore had there not been the counterbalance of information on the internet providing these potential recruits with the other side of the story, there should then have been observed a thousand-fold increase in members rather than a decrease or the dramatic slowing down which now exists. It seems there has been a job well done here. Cheers!!

One of the ‘half-truths’ concerns Essence. I believe people themselves SHOULD KNOW what lies in their Essence, and not need a FALSE GURU to tell them – as in, “Dear, you have a strawberry-pink essence, with green polka-dots” (I think you know how stupid REB can get?!). If Essence is realized and worked upon, then the inner joy it brings can see you through a myriad of difficulties…..Nigel

Here’s a sign that you’ve become worse off than the average person: you’re convinced that your own superstitious beliefs are “conscious knowledge from higher mind,” while everyone else’s superstitious beliefs are nonsense. Every true believer of religion feels this way about other people’s beliefs, and that only their beliefs are the true way.

Another error: believing that just because a particular writing is old, it is somehow superior. If that were the case, we would all still be arguing for the morality of slavery.

“But I am superior! ~ I am a member of an elitist esoteric club, The Fellowship of Friends. My teacher, Robert Burton, is in communication with 44 angels and is the brightest light to walk this earth in two thousand years.

Please see the attached statement by one of our elders, Girard Haven:”

“Rightly understood, all spiritual traditions stress the importance of presence as the gateway between the human and the divine. Where they differ is in the methods and techniques used to develop presence. The Fourth Way, and in particular the Fellowship of Friends, incorporates methods particularly suited to the times in which we live.”

“It’s getting late now…I must change for dinner and get my purse; my boyfriend sups in the wine cellar of the Galleria and may be honored this evening with a request to commingle his bodily fluids with those of our teacher, who is a goddess in a man’s body (yes, Robert Burton.)

If, according to Girard Haven , “…the Fellowship of Friends, incorporates methods particularly suited to the times in which we live.” then why does it appeal to so few members of humanity? It certainly is not a popular cult.

It’s curious to me to see how often the “Seekers of Truth” devolve into the Defenders of the Life-Style!
Even the good Ouspensky himself, succumbed to the ‘comfort of living from the efforts made by others’. But at least Ouspensky observed his pleasure-taking as weakness. He realized it as moral flaw because he also possessed a Conscience.
meow!

This whole idea of Presence being the Ultimate Aim is about the biggest con any cult can push! It defers responsibility for finding out what your True Purpose is, your Life’s Work, if you will. All the 44 Conscious Beings/Angels had a commitment to an Art Form or area of spiritual responsibility. Rodney Collin stated that a physical aim can lead to the greatest realms of one’s Essence.

I am so glad that my Fate has led me away from supporting Burton’s hedonistic lifestyle and, through time, has given me the chance to share my essence Talents with others.

Trouble is – yes, it would be laughable, were it not for the serious consequences and dangers of these young foreigners having homosexual orgies with Burton. Someone posted that the FBI has a close eye on Burton – God, I hope so! Every story I hear leads me to believe that Burton is a sexually-addicted megalomaniac and psychopath/sociopath. Someone was quoted as saying “I cannot leave the ‘school’. I love Robert!” It just gets more sick!!!!!…..Nigel.

Yes, we all loved Robert to the best of our abilities. But it was the learning to love ourselves that helped us to be free.
Robert’s “love” has always been limited by his mental illness and the need to use people for his personal gain, sexual and or financial.
His own character flaws and the inability to truly love are what spoiled the FOF from the very beginning.

re. 97 Silentpurr:
I wholeheartedly agree with all you said in the above. I would like to add to this that after I became sucked in I would imagine that it was possible that the visible flaws were contrived to make sure that we would not become identified (fall in love) with him (reb). It just is that easy to give someone the benefit of the doubt.
It was not till after I left (2002) that I heard about what was going on and then of course everything started to make sense or not make sense depending on which perspective is used.
Is it not amazing how what at the time seemed to be the next logical step can seem to have been extremely illogical? Or was that just me and the shifts in my point of view? I am not talking about Robert here, that`s his problem.
I thank everyone who have posted their stories here because without them I would probably be thinking that I was to blame for transforming him into the monster that he is. It is nice to hear that he was like that from the beginning. It takes the edge off any guilt feelings that I might have harbored. Cheers!!

An after thought:
I was cleaning my eye glasses before going off to bed. Funny thing is when I held then at arm`s length close to the light I noticed that each lens has a couple numbers printed on them. When I bring them close to my eyes, I cannot see them.
Now I wonder why I happened to notice those numbers tonight after my last post above. I have had those numbers right there in front of me for years but couldn`t see them.
I kind of think there might be a message there for me. I wonder what it might be.
Cheers!!

Ah the memories! I was at a dinner at the Academy one night when a bat flew in through an open door.
You should have heard the interpretation of that shock.
What I do remember is that the bat searched for an exit in a very batlike way and left never to come back. Seems like that one was not so crazy after all.
Cheers!

CAIRO — The State Department began a voluntary evacuation of hundreds of American citizens from Egypt on specially chartered flights to what it called “safe havens” on Monday, and governments around the world scrambled to put together evacuation plans for their citizens.

Chaos reigned at Cairo International Airport, the country’s largest airport, as a sea of tourists and Egyptians scrambled desperately to get on an outbound commercial flight on Monday. Throngs pushed through Terminal 4 where stranded travelers slept on luggage on the litter-strewn floor. A dozen people stood atop ticket counters, seeking a view over the crowd. . .’

Re. 101. Silentpurr–“The bat was just a bit confused, like the rest of us. But he was able to teach his lesson perfectly: leave and never come back!“
It did two and half turns around the chandelier and then made a beeline for the door. Apparently it “Saw the Light“.
Cheers!

‘Now I wonder why I happened to notice those numbers tonight after my last post above. I have had those numbers right there in front of me for years but couldn`t see them.
I kind of think there might be a message there for me. I wonder what it might be.
Cheers!!’

Hey, Renald, here’s one for you: With both your eyes open, with or without glasses, look out over the scene you see. Do you happen to notice the nose that is in the foreground? It has always been there. But, a person is so used to it being there, they usually do not notice it. People are usually concerned with the things they are identified with in their range of sight.

Here is another: The optics of the eye are such that the image of everything we see is upside-down on our retina. So, we actually see everything upside-down and the brain corrects for this. We are entirely used to this way of seeing.

Here is another: Do a google on: ‘blind spot test’ and you will find results that show that the structure of the eye has blind spots where the retina gives way to the optic nerve bundle. Various tests can reveal this to you. One, for example, can show that a line that is viewed in a manner where it passes directly through the blind spot and should be broken, is not. The brain knows about the blind spot and interpolates the correct image. Amazing!

A similar thing could be said in a psychological sense. We see what we want to see.

Usually the agency conveys secret information in license plates and cave paintings. In this case the message “batshitcrazy” had to be made a bit more obvious. I wonder what the loyal followers will do when he’s gone? Who will give the cermonial blow jobs?

re. 104. Wouldnt You Like To Know
Maybe Wouldnt You Like To Know knows about noses.
Whether I was aware of the nose or not I did follow it into and out of the fof as well as every day when I was in.
Comedy or Tragedy? If the stories of each indi-
vidual were to be looked at some 50 years later from start to finish I am sure there could then be seen many blind spots which were accomodated for.

To be or not to be. To be blown or not to be blown. That is not the question. To have desired to be blown or not be blown (when apparently so many were) in a passing desire which was not specific enough might be said to have been the culprit. Yet….might it be kinda useless to cry over spilt milk ?
As an individual looking at my life from up close I can easily miss Da Nose. It is a given that I would.
What is on your wish list NOW ? Have you got the slightest idea ? Could you make a list of the top ten ? I`ll give you ten to one as the agent says that you can not within five minutes. Prove me wrong and attract a happier life for yourself. Like I often say, enough is enough. Cheers!!

I’m just the pieces of the man I used to be
Too many bitter tears are raining down on me
I’m far away from home
And I’ve been facing this alone
For much too long
I feel like no-one ever told the truth to me
About growing up and what a struggle it would be
In my tangled state of mind
I’ve been looking back to find
Where I went wrong

Too much love will kill you
If you can’t make up your mind
Torn between the lover
And the love you leave behind
You’re headed for disaster
Cos you never read the signs
Too much love will kill you
Every time

I’m just the shadow of the man I used to be
And it seems like there’s no way out of this for me
I used to bring you sunshine
Now all I ever do is bring you down
How would it be if you were standing in my shoes
Can’t you see that it’s impossible to choose
No there’s no making sense of it
Every way I go I’m bound to lose

Too much love will kill you
Just as sure as none at all
It’ll drain the power that’s in you
Make you plead and scream and crawl
And the pain will make you crazy
You’re the victim of your crime
Too much love will kill you
Every time

Too much love will kill you
It’ll make your life a lie
Yes, too much love will kill you
And you won’t understand why
You’d give your life, you’d sell your soul
But here it comes again
Too much love will kill you
In the end…
In the end.

AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.

The earth—that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women—I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

Thinking back on my time in the fof, pathway of presence I remember having this comfort of the 44 angels or C Influence. Now I see my blind spot different in the sense being more aware of “the God in me” Or “the child in me or “the wise women” or “the educator or the parent” in me.

This external projection was such a deviation. I feel more empowered and more free then ever.What a road traveling back to myself.

“The self by its nature knows itself only. For lack of experience whatever it perceives it takes to be itself. Battered, it learns to look out and to live alone. When right behaviour becomes normal, a powerful inner urge makes it seek its source. The candle of the body is lighted and all becomes clear and bright.” – Nisargadatta

I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very thing I look at, and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness, love; you may give it any name you like. Love says “I am everything”. Wisdom says “I am nothing”. Between the two, my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the
subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither, and beyond both.

When you reach a state when body is transcended, mind is transcended and consciousness is also transcended; from then on all is merely happening out of consciousness, which is the outcome of the body, and there is no authority or doer-ship. When a sound is emanating out of a body, it is not that somebody is talking, it is just words emanating, just happening, not doing.

Nige……If Nisargadatta our anyone else desires and expects nothingness or whatever that means to him, then that is what he will attract and experience.
At least in that state he would not be attracting anything new that he could consider to be negative.
If in his mind nothingness is the equivalent of bliss, then that is how he would experience it.
The catch there is that if he had created something negative in his not too distant past, then that would now be allowed to enter his life. For example if he had been doing some healing and at the same time been sporadically focusing on the illness, then that illness could then become a part of his experience. If on the other hand he had envisioned some positive scenarios such as abundance or especially something desired which was more specific (such as experiencing angels) and if those somethings were then not allowed to manifest due to a change in thinking, (resistance), that then could be allowed to manifest.(due to the state of allowance).
These manifestations could then be accepted or rejected and the whole process would then start anew. Sorry if this explanation sounds a little mixed but that is what happens when I try to explain various possibilities in one shot. We are free to create and allow or create and resist as well as create in a way to have opposing desires which will then zero each other out and produce nothing, this being the reason why many people experience nothing new for long periods of time.
An example of such balancing out energy might be where someone experiences rich surroundings and desires to replicate them in their life and then switches their line of thought and emotions to the reasons why they are sick and tired of being poor, plus one being added to minus one.
Trusting our play is one way of describing the state of allowing which is necessary for our creations to manifest.
Cheers!!

“Lawrence writes:
The laws regarding traﬃcking were built largely around forced prostitution, but they also pertain to slave labor. Under federal law, slavery is deﬁned, in part, by the use of coercion, torture, starvation, imprisonment, threats, and psychological abuse. The California penal code lists several indicators that someone may be a victim of human traﬃcking: signs of trauma or fatigue; being afraid or unable to talk, because of censorship by others or security measures that prevent communication with others; working in one place without the freedom to move about; owing a debt to one’s employer; and not having control over identification documents. Those conditions echo the testimony of many former Sea Org members…”

Thank you for posting this information on Scientology. The February 14th – 21st double issue of The New Yorker has a 26 page article on the Oscar winning film screenwriter and director Paul Haggis ~ Million Dollar Baby [writer] and Crash [writer and director] who was a Scientology member for over 30 years. The article is an expose on Scientology and useful in that it educates the public on cult mindset, propaganda and brainwashing, and a multitude of abuses.
I have a friend who has been a Scientology member for over 30 years. I am sending him these links.

The below article ~ may be viewable for only a short time via this link ~ if it no longer works Google the article title:

The Apostate
Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology.
by Lawrence Wright
February 14, 2011http://nyr.kr/hlezx5

Quotes from page 16:

‘Many of the participants had long been cut off from their families. They had no money, no credit cards, no telephones. According to De Vocht, many lacked a driver’s license or a passport. Few had any savings or employment prospects. As people fell out of the game, Miscavige had airplane reservations made for them. He said that buses were going to be leaving at six in the morning. The powerlessness of everyone else in the room was nakedly clear.’

‘He reminded me that church members believe that Scientology holds the key to salvation: “Only by going through Scientology will you reach spiritual immortality. You can go from life to life to life without being cognizant of what is going on. If you don’t go through Scientology, you’re condemned to dying over and over again in ignorance and darkness, never knowing your true nature as a spirit. Nobody who is a believer wants to lose that.” Miscavige, Hawkins says, “holds the power of eternal life and death over you.”’

Quote from page 17:

‘Still others had been expelled or declared Suppressive Persons. Haggis asked himself, “What kind of organization are we involved in where people just disappear?”’

As a permanent resident at Renaissance for about ten years I considered it normal for students to just disappear. I thought at the time that this was because many just came to visit short-term.
At one point I simply stopped making much efforts to develop friendships because of these disappearances. It was not until after I left the fof and joining the Greater Fellowship and this blog online that I actually heard some of their stories. No doubt there were many more who just preferred to keep their stories private.

There was another matter though that I did hear about that raised red flags for me. That was the matter of the large number of students who developed serious illnesses such as cancers and also the deaths of so many young people. In my opinion, these illnesses have at their roots psychological repression, resistance and basically negative emotions and beliefs. I figured that there were far too many and that this was a sign that the teachings were flawed. Years later I still think that my assessment was and is correct.

‘At the time Haggis was doing his research, the F.B.I. was conducting its own investigation. In December, 2009, Tricia Whitehill, a special agent from the Los Angeles office, flew to Florida to interview former members of the church in the F.B.I.’s office in downtown Clearwater, which happens to be directly across the street from Scientology’s spiritual headquarters. Tom De Vocht, who spoke with Whitehill, told me, “I understood that the investigation had been going on for quite a while.” He says Whitehill confided that she hadn’t told the local agents what the investigation was about, in case the office had been infiltrated. Amy Scobee spoke to the F.B.I. for two days. “They wanted a full download about the abuse,” she told me.’

[Hope F.B.I.’s watching Fellowship of Friends.]

Quote from page 20:

‘Claire met Marc Headley, also a teen-ager, soon after her arrival. “We had no ties to anyone not in Scientology,” Claire said. “It was a very closeted and controlled existence.” Marc says it was widely known around the base that he was one of the first people Tom Cruise audited. In Scientology, the auditor bears a significant responsibility for the progress of his subject. “If you audit somebody and that person leaves the organization, there’s only one person whose fault that is—the auditor,” Headley told me. (Cruise’s attorney says that Cruise doesn’t recall meeting Marc.) Claire and Marc fell in love, and married in 1992. She says that she was pressured by the church to have two abortions, because of a stipulation that Sea Org members can’t have children. The church denies that it pressures members to terminate pregnancies. Lucy James, a former Scientologist who had access to Sea Org personnel records, says that she knows of dozens of cases in which members were pressed to have abortions.’

‘In 2009, the Headleys filed their suits, which maintained that the working conditions at the Gold Base violated labor and human-trafficking laws. The church responded that the Headleys were ministers who had voluntarily submitted to the rigors of their calling, and that the First Amendment protected Scientology’s religious practices. The court agreed with this argument and dismissed the Headleys’ complaints, awarding the church forty thousand dollars in litigation costs. The court also indicated that the Headleys were technically free to leave the Gold Base. The Headleys have appealed the rulings.’

‘Defectors also talked to the F.B.I. about Miscavige’s luxurious life style. The law prohibits the head of a tax-exempt organization from enjoying unusual perks or compensation; it’s called inurement. Tommy Davis refused to disclose how much money Miscavige earns, and the church isn’t required to do so, but Headley and other defectors suggest that Miscavige lives more like a Hollywood star than like the head of a religious organization—flying on chartered jets and wearing shoes custom-made in London. Claire Headley says that, when she was in Scientology, Miscavige had five stewards and two chefs at his disposal; he also had a large car collection, including a Saleen Mustang, similar to one owned by Cruise, and six motorcycles. (The church denies this characterization and “vigorously objects to the suggestion that Church funds inure to the private benefit of Mr. Miscavige.”)

Former Sea Org members report that Miscavige receives elaborate birthday and Christmas gifts from Scientology groups around the world. One year, he was given a Vyrus 985 C3 4V, a motorcycle with a retail price of seventy thousand dollars. “These gifts are tokens of love and respect for Mr. Miscavige,” Davis informed me.

By contrast, Sea Org members typically receive fifty dollars a week. Often, this stipend is docked for small infractions, such as failing to meet production quotas or skipping scripture-study sessions. According to Janela Webster, who was in the Sea Org for nineteen years before defecting, in 2006, it wasn’t unusual for a member to be paid as little as thirteen dollars a week.’

‘Miscavige’s official title is chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center, but he dominates the entire organization. His word is absolute, and he imposes his will even on some of the people closest to him. According to Rinder and Brousseau, in June, 2006, while Miscavige was away from the Gold Base, his wife, Shelly, filled several job vacancies without her husband’s permission. Soon afterward, she disappeared. Her current status is unknown. Tommy Davis told me, “I definitely know where she is,” but he won’t disclose where that is.’

‘A survey of American religious affiliations, compiled in the Statistical Abstract of the United States, estimates that only twenty-five thousand Americans actually call themselves Scientologists. That’s less than half the number who identify themselves as Rastafarians.’

‘I asked how, if these people [defectors] were so reprehensible, they had all arrived at such elevated positions in the church. “They weren’t like that when they were in those positions,” Davis responded. The defectors we were discussing had not only risen to positions of responsibility within the church; they had also ascended Scientology’s ladder of spiritual accomplishment. I suggested to Davis that Scientology didn’t seem to work if people at the highest levels of spiritual attainment were actually liars, adulterers, wife beaters, and embezzlers.’

‘Rathbun now makes his living by providing Hubbard-inspired counselling to other defectors, but he says that he has no desire to be part of a hierarchical organization. “Power corrupts,” he says.’

‘Twelve other defectors told me that they had been beaten by Miscavige, or had witnessed Miscavige beating other church staff members. Most of them, like John Peeler, noted that Miscavige’s demeanor changed “like the snap of a finger.” Others who never saw such violence spoke of their constant fear of the leader’s anger.’

‘Since leaving the church, Haggis has been in therapy, which he has found helpful. He’s learned how much he blames others for his problems, especially those who are closest to him. “I really wish I had found a good therapist when I was twenty-one,” he said. In Scientology, he always felt a subtle pressure to impress his auditor and then write up a glowing success story. Now, he said, “I’m not fooling myself that I’m a better man than I am.”’

Quotes from page 26:

‘Haggis was in a corner receiving accolades from his friends when I found him. I asked him if he felt that he had finally left Scientology. “I feel much more myself, but there’s a sadness,” he admitted. “If you identify yourself with something for so long, and suddenly you think of yourself as not that thing, it leaves a bit of space.” He went on, “It’s not really the sense of a loss of community. Those people who walked away from me were never really my friends.”’

‘He thought for a moment, then said, “I was in a cult for thirty-four years. Everyone else could see it. I don’t know why I couldn’t.”’

“What kind of organization are we involved in where people just disappear?”

“Only by going through Scientology will you reach spiritual immortality.”

“It was a very closeted and controlled existence.”

The law prohibits the head of a tax-exempt organization from enjoying unusual perks or compensation; it’s called inurement.

“If you identify yourself with something for so long, and suddenly you think of yourself as not that thing, it leaves a bit of space.” He went on, “It’s not really the sense of a loss of community. Those people who walked away from me were never really my friends.”

I am beginning to like reading posts by “Renald”. At first, I just thought he was ‘busting for an argument’ but, looking back a bit, I see he ‘stirs ferment’ into my thinking to ensure I do not ‘stick’ in my cognitive process…..Nigel.

The crocuses have come up on the police station lawn – early-spring arrives in Exeter! Little children – tiny bundles of positive energy (watched by their parents), running about in the shopping mall. The Good Book promises us ‘life in all its fullness’. I feel, at a certain point in life, being human is a joy and, therefore, a responsibility…..Nigel.